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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26786146">The Night-Shading Tree</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreadfulStar/pseuds/DreadfulStar'>DreadfulStar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Death, Fantasy, Minor Character Death, Self-Discovery, Trees, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:47:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,624</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26786146</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreadfulStar/pseuds/DreadfulStar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Another high school assignment from 2017. We had a series of story components we had to weave into a short story. </p>
<p>A woman trapped on a levitating plot of land where her house and tree stand reflects on the life she lost. After a time, even something as great as your own name is forgotten.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Night-Shading Tree</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The heart-shattering echoes of gunfire ricocheted across the ground and spiralled out into the misty, deathly air in hollow glory. The war raged on underneath the isolated world of a once-mother, a once-friend, a once-somebody. She used to live in the Midwest USA, but now, it stood as empty fields and pain. The war that fed its own rage became known as the Thanatos War. The Thanatos War claimed a luxurious title for a furious death race to Heaven’s gates. Yet, as the days became years and years into decades, dodging the firefly sparks of shrapnel became all people could remember. The old women became fated to forever watch the destruction from her floating hell. Now, she felt death claiming her as it had most of her world. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A few years into the war, she felt her home shuddering as if her house sobbed with the lungs of a titan. Her daughter looked up from the table where she spent her time drawing a charcoal sketch. Her daughter stood and crept outside to watch her home lift up from the ground, continuing up into the air. Little Day, the daughter, walked out with her mother, fearing an airstrike hit, tearing the ground apart with the fury of demons. The screaming earth tore away from the loose flesh of the land and little Day felt the ground beneath her shift. Cold atmospheric winds swept by, took a deep breath, and blew her away into the groggy fog of a slumbering desolation. Day disappeared into the blossoming nightmare, leaving her mother screaming every prayer her mind could recall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fifty years passed since the now old woman had humanity, a reason to be alive. Now the god-unfearing tree guarded and claimed her. Gunshots broke the slumber of a mourning morning and reminded her to rise out of the numb cradle of her lonesome bed. Sleeping prevented remembering, and remembering caused the sorrow of living. The old woman saw no light in her life and the jolts of pain and cold overtaking her frail, thin body reminded her she grew ready to depart from the living life soon. Soon could not approach fast enough for her.   </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blankets from her bed clung to her from sweat and the vacant loom of dirt perfumed the room, as always. Moisture budded off the walls, glistening like tears along the flaking wooden walls. She gagged from the smell, like every morning, until her nose numbed and her body ignored the dampness that swelled in the walls. Lately, her gags had transitioned to dry coughing and the gasping intensely shook her chest. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She stepped away from the bed, knees clicking together as she pulled the weight up from the bed and forced her body to move forward. The inside of her throat fizzed, dry and thirsty. As she wiped at her eyes, she let her body move robotically towards a hole in the wooden slats where the tree tore through the walls and water from the leaves dripped inside to spill into a small porcelain vase. The water inside sloshed as she picked the vase up and the darkness let her forget the water filtered grey, tainted with soot and debris. She took a cup and swallowed but her lungs seized on her, projecting her body over as she felt a fit of coughing overtake her. Balance abandoned her and she crashed back into the counter, causing laminate to shatter off and expose the moist mushy pulp inside. The room spun in her vision so she clamped her eyes shut to lock to world out. When the world righted itself again, she took a deep breath and held onto the table in front of her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pulled away from the kitchen and walked into the small hallway from the front door to a small living room. Perhaps she felt a longing of whimsy or a nostalgic twist, she came to find herself before the window in the living room. The curtains hung limp and forlorn along the walls, musky soil-grey from the dust that soaked into them. Those curtains had not moved from where they stood guard in decades, but today the old woman reached forth and pulled them apart. Her heart fluttered with a shivering, beckoning anticipation as the curtains flitted to the sides.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Almost no light came in. Her heart shrank as her enthusiasm shrivelled up and died inside her. The hollowness returned where her inner ember had begun to stoke. She sighed and let her arms fall beside her but as the darkness filtered in, a small trickle of light peeped its way in as well. The light struck the old woman’s eye, illuminating the glaze of her luminous toffee gilded eyes. She’d long forgot what her eyes looked like in a reflection, but as she stared out into the window, her gloomy reflection gazed back. A glimpse of life winked back. The sight shook her and she stepped back. The ghost that shared her body and soul looked amazed in the window and the speckled light revealed the engild eyes upon her face. She blinked profusely and rubbed her face but could not shake what she saw. She forgot long ago she belonged to the human race, not a ghost haunting the ruins of a house slowly being eaten by a lumbering tree. The Thanatos War stole everything. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another cough clenched her lungs shut and she turned to look at the front door. She departed from her house and shoved her body out of the shrunken door. The tree grew over half of the door, leaving only a gap to wiggle out from. Outside, her eyes burned from the air but the tree left enough oxygen for her to breathe. She looked back to her home. The house grazed the air above the oblivion of a past country. The world the woman came from destroyed itself through war and hate, but something made her home lift itself up from the ruins and save itself. Sadly, she found herself perpetually alone. The tree that stands in the center of her isolated Earth crawled cautiously up to the sky. The woman lived alone inside that tree with no one to watch her hair go grey or her face shrivel with age. She lost her chances at that. If she looked down, past the sprawling, free roots, she saw city ruins in the dark mist. Her home became eaten by the ever-growing tree. The woman let the tree surround her, living and feeding off the same emptiness. She knew she once had a name, but hope remained useless alone. The looming, night-shading tree became all she had. Nonetheless, something stirred within her and the sight of herself in the window flashed in her mind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had to live again before she died. The thought of death triggered a rampant cough to shake her once more. An urgency bit into her heels and she turned to rush into the house. Once inside, she burrowed into the cumulative disarray and found the small wooden chest, painted vermillion by her mother, where she stored all of her keepsakes. Her mother etched her name into the lid in tight, delicate script. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Solita Day Breen. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Day… She named her daughter after herself. Her memory blocked her own name out of her mind because she no longer wanted to be human. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Inside the chest, she found the paper she wanted, a simple charcoal sketch her daughter made that fateful day when Solita Breen’s world became eternal night. Solita stared deep into the lines Day drew and felt a beacon of love glint inside her. Past the drawings, unopened envelopes remained stacked in the corners and Solita saw it fit to finally open her great-grandmother’s letters to her grandfather. Solita always thought she should avoid snooping, but today it felt necessary. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The letters were dull at first and soft memories lingered on the pages, but one letter caught her attention. In the letter, her great-grandmother warned her grandfather to be cautious of digging on the nearby property. According to her great-grandmother, her ancestors were buried not too far from the house itself underneath a sapling. Her family built the house on hallowed ground. Solita paused, taken back at first from the realization. The house existed on pure ground. Hallowed ground explained why it lifted off the ground! The ground! The graves! </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solita tossed all the letters back into the chest and let the lid fall shut. She rose and fought her breath to stay steady as she ran through to the cupboards to get a shovel, any shovel she could find. The small trawl she uncovered served its purpose well enough to Solita. Her mind slowly hazed as the coughing stole her oxygen and pain lit up her joints. Dauntless, she continued her journey outside, shoving past the door and dropped to her knees at the base of the tree. She dug and dug as far as she could as her strength weakened and her body crumpled. She made a sizeable hole, searching for her family to die beside but as she parted the ground, she dug her own shallow grave. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She felt a calmness embrace her as she limply slunk forward, resting in the grave with grace. Her eyes began to shut and her vision became illuminated by a shimmery, frosty blue as figures rose out of the tree roots and surrounded her. They caressed her body and she felt peace in their gentle grasp. In death, she too rose out as an icy silhouette. Her long-forgotten family welcomed her with them, calling her name over and over. They took their final bows and left once and for all, purpose fulfilled. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>From solitude to Solita to silence.</span>
</p>
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